New gas stations everywhere
If we are heading to an all electric future why is it everywhere I go I see new gas stations being built? Some are huge with rows and rows of gas pumps. Don't seem to see any charging stations being ...
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I think I have a different take on the subject since my background is nuclear power and electric generation. Video if you have Fakebook: https://fb.watch/pAd2AOu4ZO/. Guy was charging an EV, consuming 137 KW (137,000 watts), the average home uses 1.25 KWh, so he was taking the same power that 106 homes would use. If he could charge at the full 350 KW would equal 280 homes. Now if every home suddenly needed to charge an EV every day, and considering the grid hasn't been significantly changed in half a century, there is no way the grid could support a large number of EVs. Seriously, CA had to tell EV owners not to charge their cars last Summer to protect their grid. Just my humble opinion, your mileage may vary.
Awesome; to the point, and crystal clear.
This utopiaian dream of some of our elected leaders, that we'll be rid of ICE vehicles in 5, 10, even 20 years, and the fact that so many buy this as a realistic goal, is sad. Reality, facts, common sense...always getting in the way
Totally agree. This is a 40 year transition and electric will be just one of the alternatives.
jmho.
The vast majority of charging is done at home. A typical home charge station draws between 3 and 8 kw. Most charge units that come with the car are plugged into a dryer outlet. The average commuter charge is 6 to 8 kWh daily. And many of us charge at night. Our cars charge timers are set to 1 AM and it’s usually done by 2 unless we just came back from a road trip.
No one has a DC fast charger at home. They are usually in commercial locations. They provide a lot of current for a short period of time. Utilities will evolve to adapt to the load just like they did with air conditioning. It’s a 40 year transition.
This is what ours looks like. Came free with the car. We have a 100 amp panel in our townhouse. We had a stove plug installed in the garage. The charge unit runs at max 32 amps. It has served us well for over 4 years.
Hum 6 - 8 kWh per day? You don’t seem to have a meter on your charger so I have to wonder what the basis for your estimate is. I wish you would provide a link to your data. Data I read says the average is about double what you say it is. 13.4 kWh daily Maybe you only use your car 5,000 or 6,000 miles per year?
Good morning Nick. I believe they base it on the average commute. It may be different region to region. Around here it’s 35 to 45 kilometres per day…ish. Our car goes about 6 kilometres to a kilowatt plus or minus.
I’m sure there are those that have both longer and shorter commutes. Ours tends to be shorter. We tended to charge everyday when we were commuting to work so it’s easy to see on the app what the car sucks up. We are mostly retired now so less regular commuting.
Or we can just look at the hydro home app and one can see the difference between days we charge and days we don’t. We are probably closer to that 5 kWh number but our commute is pretty short now. typically our house uses about 14 kWh in a day. On days we charge after a commute that would be closer to 19 or 20.
Road trips we use superchargers or charge at campgrounds sometimes when we are towing which is a whole other topic.
Hope that helps.
Quick edit. You can see we charged last Thursday after a commute.
Herb wrote:I think I have a different take on the subject since my background is nuclear power and electric generation. Video if you have Fakebook: https://fb.watch/pAd2AOu4ZO/. Guy was charging an EV, consuming 137 KW (137,000 watts), the average home uses 1.25 KWh, so he was taking the same power that 106 homes would use. If he could charge at the full 350 KW would equal 280 homes. Now if every home suddenly needed to charge an EV every day, and considering the grid hasn't been significantly changed in half a century, there is no way the grid could support a large number of EVs. Seriously, CA had to tell EV owners not to charge their cars last Summer to protect their grid. Just my humble opinion, your mileage may vary.
I believe the numbers quoted here were a typo error. Could have been done in the original article. Ther is another problem for EV's now that the temperature has dropped below freezing in many areas. The batteries will not charge at those temperatures and need to be warmed. Driving range will drop quite a bit in cold weather. A Toyota hybrid would be a better choice.
We haven’t had any charging problems at minus 31. One has to remember to pre-condition or a 20 minute supercharge session will turn into a 2 hour session. A lot of new EV drivers learn that the first cold snap. As well a lot of non tesla EV’s don’t have the option to pre-condition the battery before a DC fast charge. Tesla does it automatically as long as you put the supercharger in as the destination. Essentially it prewarms the battery.
Correct on the reduced range. We see a drop of about 30 percent at around minus 30. It’s common for us to add a 20 minute supercharge stop in Merritt on the way to Vancouver. Kinda works out for us anyway as at that point we have been on the road about 2.5 hours and we need a bathroom and coffee refill brake. In winter we also try to stay on the top 2/3 of the battery or (gas tank when we were driving a gasser) just for safety reasons. Kinda how we are taught here as kids.cheers.
Here is a good chart that shows you the effect temperature has on range both hot and cold: Chart
